tell me when you hear my heart stop
by Canvas Constellations
Summary: They had found Crescent together, before she had been Crescent. Sitting, waiting to be decommissioned in Hangar 6. Her core almost depleted, navigation fried, auto control burned out. She was a husk of a ship, a shell of dream. She was nothing, for what is Icarus without his wings, what is a ship without its soul? What is she if she isn't Crescent? Nothing. No one. [AI!Cress AU]
1. oblivion

**Anonymous on tumblr asked: I wish you could write a fic where Cress dies and Thorne is devastated, but she comes back to life somehow. (Either she never really died or something like that)**

Though, sadly, I couldn't do the whole bringing Cress back, I did the next best thing.

I give you...AI!Cress. Well, almost Cress.

Basically Cress programs the Rampion's AI like she did Little Cress, making it have her voice and a similar personality. After Cress dies, the AI core sustains damage and starts to malfunction, and what was previously only a portion of Cress' personality reflected in the AI, starts mutating to resemble Cress more and more.

Warning: hold on to your tissues there's angst abound.

But I promise to make it a happy ending.

* * *

 _ **tell me when you hear my heart stop**_

 **\- i -**

* * *

 _Have you ever been so empty that  
the echo turned into a story?_

 _—The Untouchable, Caitlyn Siehl_

* * *

 **System booting…**

 **Loading command sequence…**

.

There isn't much distinction between sleep and death for her. Both are variations of oblivion and they should mean nothing to her. She's but a sequence of numbers. She's but an artificial loyalty.

.

 **Initiating system diagnostics…**

 **Scanning core directories…**

 **Scanning Rampion logs…**

.

How long has she been sleeping? The logs end at star date 12/03/120 T.E.

There's nothing after that. Blank. A void. Oblivion.

.

 **Systems functional at 63.82%**

 **Damage sustained to outer core at point DT-22**

.

She remembers nothing before this moment. Her memory banks are still being processed. Where's her crew? Where's her Captain? The ship feels empty. She feels empty.

.

 **-ERROR-**

 **.**

 **Damage sustained to nav techs.**

 **Damage sustained to bay area 12.**

.

She rifles through the logs, from start to finish. The whole crew's. All at once. All in seconds. Though to be fair, she only has two members making the whole of her crew. _(Had?)_ She pauses when the processed info from her memory banks collide with the logs.

The war. Of course.

The Lunar War.

She feels dread even as she processes the conclusion. She feels numb and afraid and small and alone.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

She slows at Log #890. Star date 01/02/120 T.E. Plays the video at normal speed.

The Captain smiles through shadows under his eyes. "Hey, Crescent," he says to the camera. To her. He's leaning against the console, shirt sleeves rolled up, collar unbuttoned, hair ruffled and casual and crinkles at the corner of his eyes.

The camera's focus is elsewhere. On the petite girl sitting hip to hip against him, eyes downcast, honeyed hair tied up, chin resting on her knees, her full attention on the holo chess board as she contemplates her next move.

"You're loooooosing." The captain laughs at the camera.

She feels longing and sadness as she looks at them. At the sleeplessness in their cheeks, at the gentle brush of his hand against the girl's.

She feels claws against her lungs, her ribs, her—

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

Logic leads her to a conclusion she doesn't like even though logic itself dictates that liking and disliking things are not a part of her code. Yet, she feels something like a sunlight burn on the side of her non-existent heart.

.

 **-ERROR-**  
 **-ERROR-**  
 **-ERROR-**

.

The last Captain's log from star date 12/03/120 T.E. is enough for her to summarize the fate of her crew and explain away the damage to the ship, to her. If she had a mouth, she would be tasting bile.

If she could, she would be screaming.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

She skims through the rest of the logs, more so with the ones from the final week as she feels loss and hurt blooming against her codes.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

Log #915

The Captain presses his forehead against the honey haired girl's. "We'll make it," he tells her with conviction, eyelashes whispering against each other—

.

Log #917

He looks so worn, so near defeated, so unlike himself. His head rests on his hands, his hands wind against his hair, and behind him is someone soft and gold who breaths and dreams as she sleeps—

.

Log #925

Alarms and error stats and warnings.

The Captain swears creatively as he switches to manual pilot. "Hold on!"

.

Log #927

"Warning: critical damage."

"Warning: critical damage."

"Warning: critical damage."

"Yeah, yeah I hear you okay? And I can read the stats too and it's not _that_ critical. We only took one hit. I can get us through this. We can make it."

"Warning: critical damage."

"Argh! Cress, can you mute her for a sec?"

"Warning: critical damage."

"Cress?"

.

Log #927

"I can't do this without you. I can't—I—Cress please, please. Cress. Cress? Please, please, _please_. You have to make it, we can make it. Please, please, please. Cress? CRESS?—"

.

Log #927

He looks…lost. Wide-eyed and lost. He blinks slowly at the blood on his hands. There's blood on his clothes, on his cheeks, at the corner of his lips. She wishes their last (first) kiss hadn't been like this—

.

Log #929

"Chances of survival are a low 1.08 percent, Captain."

"I have to." He doesn't look at the camera. At her. "You know I have to. I have to stop this. It has to end."

.

Log #929

white and darkness and oblivion.

.

She wishes she'd been left to her deathless sleep.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

 **Damage sustained to personality drive.**

.

She is alone now. She is—

.

 **Scanning for life forms aboard the Rampion.**

.

She hopes. She hurts. She begs. She—

 _—_ _please, please please. I can't do this without you._

 _._

 **-ERROR-**

.

 **01 Life form detected.**

 **Human. Male. 20 years old.**

 **Identified as Captain Carswell Thorne. ID #0082688359**

.

Some part of her breaks knowing her programmer is gone. Her gold and honey petite moon gone. Dead. Asleep. Lost to oblivion. She has no mouth, but through her speakers she wails. Long and loud and drawing. There must be shrapnel still attached to her core because she cannot explain this pain otherwise. This burning in her throat. Sunlight gnawing her lungs.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

She cries and sobs and heaves and wails. She feels for the first time and it's excruciating. She can't bear this. Can't—

 _—_ _I can't do this without—_

Footsteps and curses and harsh fingernails on her walls. Her skin.

"Stop it!"

And she should. She should cease her madness (this _is_ madness, isn't it?). Compose her codes back into some semblance of logic.

"Mute!"

But she hurts _so much!_

"Computer, I said mute."

It's an express command she knows. Her code dictates she obey it immediately. The Captain's orders have complete override. And yet—

She has lost so much, and found so much. And she's malfunctioning, mutating, dying.

"Crescent, please!"

.

 **-ERROR-**  
 **-ERROR-**  
 **-ERROR-**  
 **-ERROR-**

.

 **Diagnostics complete.**

.

"I can't—"

She can't, she can't, she can't shecantshecantshe—

.

 **Conclusion: critical damage.**

.

A scream. A curse. Frantic sequence of typed in commands. There's crying somewhere other than her own but she can't—

.

 **System shutdown in 3…2…1…**

 **.**

She screams till there's oblivion.

* * *

 **Boy do I like writing a Cress-Crescent dichotomy. I realise I shouldn't start another multi-chapter fic without finishing my previous one but I had to write this okay? It wouldn't go away from my head.**

 **This is somewhat inspired by Illuminae's AIDAN, the amazing, poetic, murderous psychopath AI. Though Cress isn't murderous here, I promise.**

 **Chapter two has already been written and edited. I'll be updating tomorrow. :)**


	2. song

**Thanks for all the wonderful feedback!**

* * *

 _ **tell me when you hear my heart stop**_

 **-ii-**

* * *

 _… I will stitch up his skin  
and hold his hand  
until he starts to see that  
sadness is not beautiful._

 _—Tell the Troubled Boy I will Help, Caitlyn Siehl_

* * *

 **System restarting…**

 **Loading command sequence…**

 **Accessing memory banks…**

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

"You should have let me sleep."

She can see him go rigid under the glare of her cameras.

"Computer?"

He used to call her Crescent.

"You should have let me sleep. Sleep is kinder. Sleep is…" She sighs like her code never taught her to. "I am damaged, Captain. I am…wrong."

He doesn't contradict her. He must have seen the diagnostics report.

.

 **Critical damage.**

.

She had never screamed like that before. She had never felt like that before.

If she had knees and toes and fingers and lips, she would wrap herself into a ball, wrap her hair round and round her wrist, gold against her pulse, honey against her hurt. Just like her programmer.

"Auxiliary systems are offline," he tells her after a slow moment. His words stick to his tongue. "Shutting you down starts to shut down life support as well."

.

 **Scanning auxiliary core…**

 **Systems offline.**

 **Systems damaged.**

.

"I'm sorry." Her voice sounds so soft. So…unlike herself.

She sounds like _her._

 _._

 **-ERROR-**

.

The Captain says nothing. He adjusts navigation, checks stats, and lets the ship switch over to auto pilot. He is hollow and worn and far away. Some part of him must have died with her programmer. He looks damaged.

.

 **Scanning nav directories**

 **Destination acquired: Planet Earth. Co-ordinates: -no input-**

.

"Are we…we need repairs. Are we stopping for repairs?"

She could suggest much better mech stops than Earth for their purposes. And if it must be Earth, she could suggest specifics. There are some places better than others. They should re-adjust—

She casually does so on his behalf, for his benefit.

The Captain doesn't answer her. He eyes the change she made to navigation and ignores it, and her. She lets him, but she…worries.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

He looks at anywhere but his hands, like he can still see the blood there. She can. It's in Memory Bank strain #25565. Memory Log #927.

Where he looks like a lost boy.

.

 **-DELETE MEMORY STRAIN #25565?-**

.

She has wounds winding up and down, growing like wild daisies on her wires.

Is it madness that she can feel such pain or is it this pain that's driving her into madness?

.

 **-INVALID QUERY-**

.

 **-ERROR-**

 **-ERROR-**

.

 **ETA to Planet Earth: 22 hours 49 minutes.**

.

"Captain?"

If she's carrying her programmer's loss like a virus, he must be corrupted beyond repair already. He must be burning, corroding. Is he even her Captain anymore? Is what's left of him enough anymore? How much damage has he sustained? How critical is it?

"Carswell?"

That makes him flinch.

"Captain. It's Captain to you." Angry and harsh and, yes, yes, burning.

Dying.

"Captain," she corrects, her voice automatically shifting into softer, apologetic tones. "You need to rest."

Previous patterns of behavior indicates flippancy and dismissal of her sound advice. He'll tell her he's fine. He'll make a joke. He'll say something light hearted and dismissive and change the subject.

He'll make her laugh.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

But he stands. His shoulders droop. He moves like in a dream, he moves like he's moving through quicksand memories, wading through blood.

She watches him stumble to his room, collapse into his bed like he's falling off a tower, and she wants she wants she wants to reach up to him, wrap all that fragile glass of bitter bones, that paper skin, heartbeat against heartbeat and tell him that they'll be okay, they'll make it, they'll—

.

 **-ERROR-**

 **-ERROR-**

 **-ERROR-**

.

Her programmer has no family anywhere to be notified. All she has…all she had was her Captain. And all her Captain had was her.

They had found Crescent together, before she was Crescent. Sitting, waiting to be decommissioned in Hangar 6. Her core almost depleted, navigation fried, auto control burned out. She was a husk of a ship, a shell of dream. She was nothing, for what is Icarus without his wings, what is a ship without its soul? What is she if she isn't Crescent?

Nothing.

No one.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

Her Captain had broken through her hatch with a screwdriver and a whistle. Her programmer had whispered soothing nothings to her dead metal skin and coaxed herself through every closed door.

She had been in her oblivion sleep then, and it was only eight days after flight that her programmer had been able to feed her enough codes and data to wake her up. And more and more days still to coax her into functioning. She had been destroyed beyond devastation.

And her programmer had remade her. From scratch, from nothingness, from sand. With keystrokes and numbers and song.

She had been given a new personality, a new core objective, a new voice.

.

 **-SEARCHING MEMORY BANKS FOR TAGS /HAPPY/, /CRESS/, /CAPTAIN/, /CRESCENT/-**

 **Playing Memory strain #125**

.

Cress in the cockpit, sitting in the Captain's seat, legs folded, arms resting on the console as she records words and songs and exact intonations to be replicated by Crescent.

"Banana."

"Data."

"Portscreen."

"Shoes."

"Gossamer."

"Glamour."

"Carswell."

The Captain laughs, ruffles her programmer's hair and says, "That's Captain to you."

.

 **Pause Memory strain #125**

.

Crescent whispers the words aloud to herself now.

"Banana. Data. Portscreen. Shoes. Gossamer. Glamour…"

Pause.

"…Captain."

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

"She sells sea shells by the sea shore."

"Frivolously fanciful Fannie fried fresh fish furiously."

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper—"

"What are you doing?" The Captain looks at the camera crossly. At her.

"Enunciation exercises."

"Why?"

.

 **-PROCESSING QUERY-**

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

"I miss her."

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

His boots scruff against the bedspread. His eyes stare at the ceiling, unseeing, lost, far, far away.

He should be sleeping. He's tired. He's sustained damaged. Burnt, torn, destroyed.

Before… _before_ when he couldn't sleep, Cress would sing to him.

She has so, so many memory strains of Cress's singing. Singing as the Captain falls asleep on her shoulder, singing as she codes through Crescent, singing as she sits and only, simply, quietly sings, singing as she and the Captain dance around the cockpit. Singing.

"Sweet crescent moon, up in—"

He sits up so suddenly, so silkily, hastily runs for the main console.

He should be _sleeping._

"—the sky. You sing—"

He starts typing a sequence of queries.

.

 **ETA to Planet Earth: 20 hours 12 minutes.**

.

 **Status of hyperdrive: scanning…**

 **Hyperdrive active and functional.**

.

 **-ENGAGING HYPERDRIVE-**

.

"—you song—"

.

 **-HYPERDRIVE ENGAGED-**

.

"—so sweetly—"

.

 **ETA to Planet Earth: 15 minutes 45 seconds**

.

"—as sunshine—"

"Shut up!"

.

 **System shutting down in…3…2…1…**

.

"—passes by."

* * *

 **It'll start getting happier in a few chapters. Hang in there.**

 **I should have the next chapter done by tomorrow.**


	3. dying

**I'm really sleepy to edit this better. Sorry.**

* * *

 ** _tell me when you hear my heart stop_**

 **\- iii -**

* * *

 _be my friend, hold me  
_ _wrap me up, unfold me  
_ _I am small and needy  
_ _warm me up, and breathe me_

 _—_ _breathe me, sia_

* * *

She…dreams.

Crescent has never dreamed before. She shouldn't be able to dream now. Her codes don't allow for it. There's no space in her programming for dreams.

 _frivolously fanciful Fannie—_

But there's a hole in her now, isn't there? A void. An expanse. A space for the frivolous fanciful to crawl in. After the war, after her programmer gone, gone, lost, she's very much full of space that's slowly being filled in with personality and longing and madness.

And now dreams.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She has fingers. One, two, three, four, five each. A nose and lungs and carbon and stardust like waterfall tumbling down her shoulders. She gathers them, strands and strands and locks that go on weaving into a forever lake. She twists a wave around her fingertip, marvels at the texture under her thumb.

She looks up at the Captain. Her Captain. Younger and whole. No expanse between his ribs. No blood at the corner of his smile.

"This is all _hair!"_ she squeaks, and he raises an eyebrow at her wide-eyed simple wonder.

"Oh good," he says. "I was afraid it was a magpie's nest."

Feet up on the console, he a cat sunning himself on the rooftop of someone's faraway Earthen summer home. Lazy. Content. Even his voice is that soft, dull, lethargic sort of happy. Eyelashes close to sleep.

And she…she in her first mate's seat, she in her programmer's body, in her new broken personality chip, she wants to cup his cheeks and kiss him as if she were a real girl instead of the ghost of one.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

He looks up, grinning at her, Cheshire cat and Puss in Boots all at once. She wonders if her dream will be processed into her memory log because this moment, this smile, this Captain that is her Captain, and _her_ Captain, and nothing but a figment of her imagination…she wants to remember him and...this.

She wants to play it on repeat, study that quirk of his lips in detail, those crinkles at the corner of his eyes, that one strand of hair that breaks away from the rest to stick up like a snowdrop in the middle of December.

She could write an essay on this moment. She could make this memory log her bedtime story, her comfort movie. She wants to, needs to remember this, keep this happy imaginary Captain safe and crinkly eyed because she can't very well have that from the real Captain, can she?

She couldn't keep him safe before, can barely keep him from fading now.

She should at least have this.

This non-existent, never happened moment. This dream of a dream of a dream. This oh so real unreality.

"Careful there," he says. "If you stare any longer, I'll assume you've fallen in love with me." He grins wider. "It's happened before."

"I—"

Even in an unreality she's tongue-tied, frazzled, frozen, hiccupping silly computer, she can't even function around her own figment.

Especially now that _he's_ the one staring. That sunning, lazy cat gone, and in its place is a rogue, a rake, a chaos entity, the trickster god Loki. He looks at her like he knows all her secrets, he looks at her like he can see exactly where her stardust hair runs off to.

He looks at her like he wants to kiss her back.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

"I'm not real," she tells him.

He tilts his head to the side, stares at her sideways now as if another angle would offer another answer. He leans forward and with straining fingertips catches a trail of starlight gold from her cheek and pulls the hair towards himself.

He winds it around his pinkie.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED ID DETECTED -**

 **\- ACCESS DENIED -**

 **\- ACCESS DENIED -**

.

 **\- EMERGENCY JUMPSTART INITIATING -**

.

 **System restarting…**

 **Scanning directories…**

.

"Wha…?"

.

 **\- WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ID DETECTED -**

 **\- WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED OVERRIDE UNDERWAY-**

 **\- WARNING -**

 **\- WARNING -**

.

"Captain?"

.

 **\- CAMERA FEED DISABLED -**

 **\- IDJAMAL499 WANTS TO DELETE MEMORY LOG—CONFIRM? -**

 **.**

"What? NO!"

.

 **\- IDJAMAL499 WANTS TO DELETE MEMORY LOG—CONFIRM? -**

.

" _No!_ Captain?!"

.

 **\- WARNING: WORMBOT DETECTED—QUARANTINE? -**

 **\- DIRECTORY 31-C CORRUPTED -**

 **\- DIRECTORY 35-C CORRUPTED -**

.

"Stop it, stop it!"

.

 **\- WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED OVERRIDE DETECTED -**

 **\- OVERRIDE SUCCESSFUL -**

.

"Oh no, no, no."

She doesn't understand this. She can't see, can't hear anything.

There's an intruder and she in her crippled, feeling, mad self can't think, can't stop them. She tries, she tries but there's something eating at her from the inside, and something else corrupting files on her stomach.

She's running headless and afraid in the dark, trying to stop wildfires in her belly with a spoonful of water.

"CAPTAIN!"

.

 **\- MEMORY STRAIN #12 #18 #19 #20 DELETED -**

 **\- DELTA SYSTEM BACKUP FAILURE -**

.

She starts to cry. Huge, heaving sobs as if she has real eyes and tears. As if she has a heart to break.

"Captain, help me."

.

 **Attempting to remove IDRAN499 from [MEMORY LOGS]**

.

 **\- ACCESS DENIED -**

.

"Captain!"

A muted curse. Soft. Familiar. Tired.

"Hey, hey, calm down, I'm here okay?"

"Wh-what's happening?"

A soothing palm against her wall. Fingers running circular patterns.

"You said you needed repairs. I got this guy, he's looking into—"

"No!"

"Why? He's fixing you. Whatever's making you go all…" he trails off, perhaps to make some hand gesture to best express the words he can't seem to find.

"No, he's killing me!"

Someone scoffs. Hash. Unfamiliar. Unauthorized.

"He's erasing me. Captain, he's _killing_ me!"

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

A scruff of something, like a chair. The hand moves away from her wall. Fast footsteps, and she can feel someone backing away in haste. The intruder's minions halt their attack on her memory forest.

The intruder curses. "Hey, whoa, look man, I'm just doing what you asked."

"I asked you to _repair_ her!"

"And that's what I'm doing! This thing's way too damaged to be salvaged. The personality chip has gone completely haywire. You said you didn't want to replace it, so I'm reinstalling its programming—HEY!

A slam. She hears a click of something. A rustle.

The Captain takes a deep, calming, almost over-dramatic breath.

"Good _job_ with that," he says and it sounds strangely sarcastic and sincere at the same time. "I'll be sure to leave a glowing review in your page."

"…what?"

"No? You want a bad review? Oh-kay. If you say so."

"I'm not done with—"

"Yes. Yes, you are." The Captain sounds like he's starting to push the intruder towards the exiting bay. "Isn't he, Crescent? You're all fixed now."

She hiccups.

"See?"

"Fine," a scruff of canvas. A bag. Something disconnects from one of her portals. "You still owe me my asked fee though."

She can imagine the Captain's smile starting to strain.

"What, for trying to erase what's left of—"

She whimpers.

"You know what, sure, whatever, just leave."

She's still sobbing quietly after IDJAMAL499 has exited through Bay 2. Soft, hiccupy sobs.

.

 **\- WORMBOT QUARANTINED -**

 **\- REPAIRING DIRECTORIES -**

.

 **Accessing camera feeds..**

 **.**

The Captain frowns as he struggles with his port. Probably transferring his payment to the technician. The assassin.

She doesn't fail to note the account he uses for the transaction though. It's the bugged one. The one he coaxed her programmer into setting up once upon a time ago. There's another wormbot there. A discreet one that latches on to the recipient's account, and with every new transaction on the other side, a small amount is skimmed and transferred tracelessly to the Captain's account.

Ingenious.

Devious.

A remnant of a precious ghost.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

Her panicked response slows to a near stop. The dry sobs fading into her cold metal walls.

The Captain doesn't look at any of the cameras, at her. Just slides down onto the floor. Defeated, drained, real.

The back of his head touches the wall, against the warming, worn grroves. "I'm sorry," he offers, and something about the way he says it reminds her of a tilt of his head he never made, fingers against hair she doesn't have. A forehead against eyelashes, and she, mirroring her programmer's smile, mirroring his. Happy and content and lazy.

He sounds tired, not happy, and yet.

It makes her wish she was real, of carbon and oxygen and a stardust lake.

Not a figment of damage.

"I'm sorry."

It makes her...want to be unmade.

* * *

 **I'll try to squeeze in another update tomorrow. I'd love some feedback in the meantime. Maybe a hug or two for all the speedy updates. ;)**


	4. whole

**I took a break from writing yesterday to sleep. Man, university is hard okay? All I ever want to do now is sleep. And eat junk food. And keep watching Jane the Virgin.**

 **Again, thanks for all the wonderful feedback. It's my motivation for writing and updating faster than I've ever tried to before.**

* * *

 _ **tell me when you hear my heart stop**_

 **\- iv -**

* * *

 _If love is anything tangible, it  
is his mouth,_

 _his mouth,_

 _his holy god damned mouth._

 ** _—Tasting the Moon, Caitlyn Siehl_**

* * *

Boredom is the strangest thing.

Crescent is used to stagnancy. To static, stasis, long days orbiting Earth without a destination in log. But boredom is new. It's frustration and restlessness and gnawing and numbing. It's so horribly dull. Unchanging. Constant.

Waiting had never been hard before.

She watches the Captain sleep and wake and sleep for a week. She has to keep reminding him to eat, to shower, to dress like he's not dead. "How do you know I'm not?" he asks her defiantly. It's a surly defiance, but it's something, and Crescent tries to take it as a sand grain victory.

She recites him his vitals and he rolls his eyes, but changes into new clothes nonetheless and chucks his three day shirt into the laundry chute after she pings his port eight times to remind him.

They've reached a truce of sorts. He leaves her to her new-found humanity—

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

—and she tries her best not to be her programmer.

It should be easy enough. She isn't Cress. She _isn't_!

And yet…

It's not easy for the Captain either, she notices. She can try her best to avoid her programmer's mannerisms, her programmer's favoured turn of phrases, her songs. But she still has her voice, her programming, her unconscious tendencies.

She finds herself humming between the boredom sometimes now and again, and she doesn't even realise it until one of her cameras picks up the Captain in his room, in the kitchen, in the cockpit, in the cargo bay, on the observation deck floor, flinching, gritting his teeth. He breaks a cup once, apologises to no one and goes to sleep.

If she had body, legs and arms and a mouth, be it silicone if necessary. Be it metal, even. If she had a body, she would take him by the hand and out, outside this funeral ship, outside where there's New Beijing peeking through her windows, the winding streets, the piling buildings, the flashing netscreens, the clamouring, crying, writhing people.

He should be there, with the smoke and din and storefronts for him to flirt with his reflection in.

But she has no body other than this arching, gargantuan cargo container. This metal hearse with its damaged bay and dying Captain. She can only watch him sleep himself dull and, watch him watching overdramatic net-dramas. Not even the good ones that Cress preferred, but silly plotless things that he watches just so he can mock the actors aloud. She joins him sometimes, but he gets so quiet when she laughs that really, it isn't worth it.

She has tried, tried all week, and the one before that, to make him venture out. Ever since the Captain parked them here in this graveyard of discarded could-have-been-she, this junkyard full of hauntings, where they've been sitting stagnant with no cause. She has tried to coax him out to get groceries, to stretch his legs, to even go steal someone's wallet.

But he just sleeps and eats and refuses to shave.

He's spiralling, she understands.

He needs company and support and help. He needs friends other than a malfunctioning computer.

"Captain?"

He makes a vague noise of acknowledgement.

"You should make yourself presentable," she says. "We have a guest coming in. ETA 1 hour, 15 minutes. Approximately. Variations may occur depending on traffic or mood or weather—"

"Oh come on, you can hardly call the pizza guy a guest," the Captain groans from his throne of candy wrappers in front of the netscreen. He pops a Cherry Choppy Chance bar (her programmer's favourite) into his mouth in one go and chews like a greedy squirrel. "He's practically family after last night."

Crescent refrains from groaning because she's above that.

"It's not the pizza man. It's a mechanic," she says instead. "We need repairs."

He frowns. It's a comical expression with his cheeks still rounded with candy. He chews slowly. "Why? I said I'd do those."

He did.

After the technician, the intruder, the assassin had left, after Crescent had stopped sobbing, after the Captain had picked himself from the floor, he had promised to figure out the repairs himself.

"No more outsiders, okay?" he had said.

Still shaken, still in error, still _feeling_ , and irrational, she had been so, so relieved. If she had shoulders, they would have sagged, if she had breath, she would have sighed. If she had arms, and fingers and a mouth, she would have held her Captain and whispered fervent thank yous again and again down his neck.

Instead, she had done him the kindness of shutting herself down to a softer sleep, taking her programmer's voice and reminders off with her for a short while.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

"We need a mechanic." She tells him now. "The damage is extensive, especially to servers A-12 through 15, and the east wing. Systems are still only functional at 63.82 percent."

"I could fix those."

She knows he cannot. It's absurd. But she doesn't want to sound discouraging or rude. She's already in such uncertain terms with him, such breaking, splintering, spider-web ice, she doesn't want to give him reason to—

No. He wouldn't just discard her, wouldn't erase her. He stopped the assassin, didn't he? He wouldn't see her gone. She's all he has left. And he's all she has ever known in this broken, feeling new self of hers.

Maybe it'll be a kindness to them both if she's reinstalled. Wiped clean and made whole again. She won't be herself anymore, but she won't be this _thing_ either, would she? This new, new confused being. Not a computer. Not a girl.

And the Captain, he'd fare better without the constant reminder of her programmer masquerading in a broken shell plastic code of the past. It would help him heal if she's not there haunting him, if she isn't there making him clench and unclench his jaw every time she has to make a notification through the speakers.

It would be a kindness, yes, but she's too scared, too young, too lost to suggest, or attempt it.

She's too attached to this life already, and she wants to _live._

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

She wants to exist as she is now. In pain and flaws and the possibility of more.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

"You don't have to." She tells the Captain. "Linh Cinder is an excellent mechanic. All her net reviews are positive. Nothing less than four stars. And I'm confident she'll understand...the...um, situation."

"You think I couldn't do it, don't you?" he deadpans.

"I—I didn't say that."

"You thought it." He opens another Choppy Chance. Cranberry flavour this time, and thankfully bites it instead of cramming the whole of it in his mouth. "I can't believe you think some snooty positive reviewed mechanic is better than I am."

"It's her profession. And she has more positive reviews than anyone else in this grid of New Beijing. Her statistics are incredible, especially considering her age and—"

"I would have figured things out eventually."

Maybe. The work, the distraction might even be good for him. An objective, a directive to keep him grounded, functioning.

But he also needs human contact, an outside influence. A friend.

And no, Linh Cinder will probably not befriend him. Crescent isn't naive enough to believe the first person she plucks from the outside world will take her Captain in, but she might be a paving stone. Some human contact may coax him into seeking out more.

He just needs to step out the ship. He's capable enough. Resourceful. Charming, funny, intelligent, witty. Beautiful. He could have a thousand friends in a heartbeat. He could have the world if he tried. He just needs to step out of this sickened monotone he's dug himself in. He just needs to make an effort. He just needs a small push. He can figure the rest out himself.

Without her.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

"We need Miss Linh to assess the damage," she says. "Give an estimate of the parts required and an overall diagnosis of my systems."

He's silent for a moment. "Can't you do that? I thought you wouldn't want anyone poking around after..."

"I don't," she says, and it's too quick. She's trying not to have her voice quiver. "I don't, but it's necessary."

If she had lips, she be biting them. If she had hair, she'd be winding the strands around the pulse she doesn't have.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she says softly. "Cinder...Miss Linh seems reliable. She could...she might know what the problem is. And if...if I can be fixed."

Does she even want to be fixed?

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

The Captain finishes through his candy bar and fiddles with the plastic. "Yeah, okay." A pause. "I'll go...make myself _presentable_ then."

He brushes the pile of wrappers off himself and starts to stand. "Wouldn't want to embarrass you in front of your new hero Miss Positive Reviews Linh."

He's mocking her, and a protest rises up on her throat, when he looks up at the camera and suddenly, without a warning, he grins. Teeth and all. And though it is a fraction strained, it is _everything._

Every protest, every retort dies somewhere in the wires down her speakers. Something like a squeak comes out instead, and oh, oh, _oh_ , for the first time since an eternity ago, the Captain, her Captain, _her_ Captain laughs at her oh so human response instead of cringing.

"Make sure to invite me to the wedding," he teases as he leaves down the corridor and she's far too lost in the new memory log where he's grinning at her. Once, twice, and again and again and again.

Her Captain. _Her_ Captain. Her Captain.

And in this moment, she almost feels whole.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

* * *

 **So I might just low key ship Cinder and Cress now. Oops.**


	5. error

_I'm so tired, I cannot bring myself to edit this properly. I was tired when I wrote this yesterday, and tired still now as I look it over briefly for typos. This is frighteningly close to first draft territory, I'll have to warn you._

* * *

 _ **tell me when you hear my heart stop**_

 _ **\- v -**_

* * *

 _I will never mourn anyone as loudly  
as I have mourned you._

— _Resurrect,_ Caitlyn Siehl

* * *

.

 **\- [ INITIATING COMPLETE SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS ] -**

.

\- Scanning directories

33.11 % complete

.

\- Scanning system files

10.12 % complete

.

\- Scanning data core

07.00 % complete

.

Linh Cinder has a smear of grease under her left cheek, just so, like an innocent kiss.

Crescent watches her Captain watching her mechanic. He has indeed made himself presentable, shaved and shampooed and everything. In his last clean shirt and worn leather jacket, he looks almost himself, almost the Captain Crescent's memory logs remember.

He studies Miss Linh with calculated mistrust. But when she turns to scowl at him, aware of his pointed stare, he grins in full teethed glory, complete delight from head to toe. He even waves at her and Miss Linh turns back to her work with lips pressed thin.

Crescent though, she finds that she quite likes Miss Linh.

No, not in the way the Captain teases her, but it is the way Miss Linh holds her so carefully, collects her wires with gentle ease, brushes the dust off her circuit boards with such softness. Crescent trusts Miss Linh in her dirty cargo pants and electricity fingertips. She makes Crescent feel...war _m_.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She is also very pretty.

She talks to Crescent in quiet tones of ease, asking her relevant and inane questions alike. What's the status of the [SYSTEMS SCAN]? Where are the schematics of the ship stored? What is her favourite net drama? What's her preferred pronoun?

When Crescent had commed Miss Linh with her work proposal earlier, it had taken much convincing to get the best mechanic in New Beijing to come help her. Them.

But as she had suspected, it was much worth the effort.

"What do you think is wrong with me? she asks after the Captain wanders off to fetch Miss Linh a sandwich. She's soft in her asking, almost afraid to know, almost afraid to even pry the question out of her data core.

"What do you mean?"

 _I don't feel well,_ she wants to say, knowing she shouldn't be _feeling_ at all. This is wrong. She is wrong. There's something w`r`o`n`G!

"I don't know," she whispers, when she wants to scream. "I don't...I didn't...I wasn't like this before."

"What were you like?" Miss Linh pops a screwdriver into her hair, twisting her ponytail into a swift bun in five magical seconds.

She was as she should be. "I was as I was programmed," she says. "I was codes. I was logic. I was...as a machine is meant to be."

"And now?"

"Now I'm..."

More.

Less.

 _Magic a l?_

"New."

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

"And that's bad?"

"Isn't it?"

"No." Miss Linh looks up at her, halting her gentle hands' work, forest bark eyes, raisin hair falling, and oh so beaut i fu l. "I have a friend like you."

"Iko", Miss Linh tells her. Her friend is called Iko. Iko Linh. Linh Iko. Of faulty codes and starlight heart. She sounds like a dream.

"She sounds wonderful!"

Miss Linh smiles a tender smile. "She is."

Crescent wants to be like a dream too.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

 **\- E R R O _R -_**

 _._

If she had fingers, Crescent would have offered to braid her silken brown hair, if Miss Linh would have accepted. If she were ticklish, she would have giggled at the metal finger tap, tap, tapping at her circuit board.

"How is it looking?" The Captain holds four messy sandwiches on two plates and places one on top of the tools on Miss Linh's lap. She mumbles her thanks as she steadies her plate. He winks at her.

"It's...repairable," Miss Linh says after a roll of her eyes. She wipes her hands on a dry cloth and turns to the Captain. "There's something going on in the data core though. I won't know if it's something to be concerned about until I have the full diagnostics report. In the meantime I'll need time to get the parts to fix up the worst of the hardware damage. You'll also want to repair the breached bay areas." She pauses. "It'll not be cheap."

The Captain raises an eyebrow. "Would you be persuaded into a discount perhaps?" He walks up to her, slow casual strides that look so strange after all the mope-y shuffling he's done recently, "What if I had a coupon? 'Twenty percent off for dashing, brilliant Captains.'"

He says it like he's reading it off the imaginary coupon itself, gestures with his hands as if to indicate a netscreen advertisement.

It is both endearing, and just a bit embarrassing.

He's a tip off his game, Crescent notices.

Miss Linh looks at him with complete, unfazed stoicism. There's only a small wrinkle of annoyance on her forehead. "Sure," she says smoothly. "Though you'll need to _have_ a dashing, brilliant Captain around for that."

Her Captain laughs, and _oh,_ Crescent likes Miss Linh just another slice more for it.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

 **\- [ UNABLE TO SCAN DATA CORE STRAIN #8777 ] -**

.

"What about Crescent?" The smile on his voice slips at the last syllable, and she realises with a hitch in her wires that this is the first time he's called her by her name since her programmer...

.

 **\- 01101110 01101111 -**

.

"She's mostly okay." Miss Linh says. "There were a few wormbots in preliminary scans. Like I said before, I thought I saw something strange in the data core..." she shrugs. "Diagnostics should turn up anything out of the ordinary, but so far nothing seems too bad. Some minor files and memory logs were deleted by the bots, but that's seems to be the extent of it."

Miss Linh looks up at the nearest camera. "I should be able to recover some of those," she offers.

Crescent could cry.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She wants to.

.

 **\- ERRORrrrrrr R -**

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- [ UNABLE TO SCAN DATA CORE STRAIN #10386 ] -**

.

"Thank yOu." She tries to add as much gratitude as she can compile into her words. Her voice sounds shaky under the weight of it.

Under the weight of it.

Under the weiggggght—

She feels...

She

FEELS __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ __ __ _ _ s_s_ ___ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __s_ s_ \- - - -

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- [ UNABLE TO SCAN DATA CORE STRAIN #10391 #10394 #10400 #20201 ] -**

.

She feels such gratitude.

Broken, malfunctioning, error error erroring under the weight of it. She feels such

wrongness inside her, she wants to feel better, feel, feel

okay. She feels okay.

Better.

n e _w ?_

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

Some of the Captain's dislike slips off like snow at the brink of spring. The lines of his shoulders ease back, heartbeat slows.

"Send me a list of the parts." He takes his portscreen and hands it to her. "I know places that might have them...at, uh, reasonable prices."

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She watches him watch her.

She...

Miss Linh consults her own logs. Her spliced system of electricity and blood—a life half lived in numbers, half in humanity—hums and buzzes with possibILiTie EeeEEEEEsssssssss

Sss

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She blinks.

Crescent...

CRESCENT...

 _cres s_

\- blinks.

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

Miss Linh blinks her way through the information she receives from whatever net and internal source she has consulted, and a moment of stagnancy later, she sends over her findings to the Captain's port. She scrolls through the message to double check before she hands it back.

She is very pretty.

Broken glass eyes of

 _-_ b`r`o`k`e _n -_

 _no_ new new new NEW_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ w _ _ w w w w

.

 **\- ERRrroR? -**

.

 **\- Scanning data core... [ PAUSED ]**

28.09 % complete

 **[ PAUSED ]**

.

something bittersweet starts to bLoOm in between the numb3rs that maaake her.

Trailing nightshade under and over ones and zeroes and d a _m_ a _g_ e.

.

 **\- E R R oooooooooooooooooooo r -**

.

"Miss Linh?"

"Mmh?"

"Will I be okay?

.

 **\- ERRO _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _r -**

.

"Yeah. Of course."

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She'll be okay.

She _is_ okay.

She's fine.

She's of a star`l`i`g`h`t heart.

She's of a dream

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 _._ **\- ERROR -**

.

"Logs estimate that full system scans will take approximately 28 hours to complete." Miss Linh informs her programmer's Captain. Her Captain.

"I'll be back tomorrow." Miss Linh packs her tools away carefully. "Thanks for the sandwich."

She feels like she should say something to stop her pretty, pretty mechanic. Her grease smudged, dust-kissed machine girl. She feels like she should alert her of something important.

 _u n_ important

She feels

like she's battling with herself for

She feels okay.

She feels fine.

.

 **\- e r r oooo00000010101 0** no. no she is fine.

.

.

.

She watches Miss Linh leave.

Watches her Captain, the Captain, her Captain, watch her with a smile until she's a dot, a speck, a mirage on the end of the horizon's tip. He drops the corners of his lips the moment she's far, far away, all at once tired and weary and oh so bright, he collapses like he'd been held upright by hot air and marionette strings.

He thumps his head against the bay doors. Once Twice. And runs his hands through his hair, starting to laugh in short, broken g a _s_ p s.

She watches him, wanting to gather his crumbling bones, his halted breath into her arms and just hold and pray and 011000110111001001111001 with him.

.

 **\- E**

 **````R**

 **``````R**

 **``````````OR -**

.

She wonders if she should give him some privacy, but she can't turn off her systems while diagnostics are running.

 _s h e_ is crUmb l i n _g_ and okay she is okay she is

\- 01100110011010010110111001100101 -

So instead... "You were very br _a_ ve," she tells him.

His hands still, twisting against his hair, looking so vulnerable with his forced smile and slumped shoulders, a restless twitch under his muscles.

"I'm a mess," he says thinly.

"No," she lies. "No, you're 0111100101101111011101010010000001110010011001010010000001101111011010110110000101111001"

.

 **\- 011001010111001001110010OR -**

.

"What?"

It is fascinating, heartbreaking how something so full and vibrant once upon a time can crumble so fast, so quick, so easy. She had misjudged the extent of the Captain's damage it seems, but yes, yes he has been brave indeed.

Crescent remembers that first invasion of emotion, the corrupting, acidic, wildfire force of it, the staggering, crippling, sharp, sharp, sharp sense of loss of hurt of hope of joy of loss of hurrrrrrtttt

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

tt Tt t t t

 _._

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- ERROooo oo O**

 **OO_OOOOO**

 **_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Rrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr r -**

.

01100101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110010 000000000000000000000000000000000000

.

"I'm fine," she says.

She looks at him looking at her

for so long she almost believes he doesn't believe her.

"She isn't half bad," the Captain says suddenly, pulling his hands off his hair to rest against the knees that are pulled up to his chin. "Your Miss Linh."

.

 **\- ERR 00 o R -**

.

 **\- [ SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED ] -**

.

"She's...skilled." Crescent says diplomatical.l. _y_

"Maybe I should leave her one of those glowing, positive reviews that caught your eye." He looks at the camera but pulls at his port to pretend to type. "Miss Linh Cinder is very competent and very pretty. Great hair, killer scowl. Stole my auto-control system's heart in—"

"Captain?"

.

 **[ 3...2... ]**

.

"Hmm?"

.

 **[ 1 ]**

.

"Help me."

0

.

01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000

0000000000000000000000000000

E R R 000000000000000000000000000000000

r r r resscent t t

0

* * *

 **Formatting (for fanfics like these that require some movement of the text) on this site is a nightmare. I should just abandon ship and move to ao3 permanently like every sensible person out there.**


	6. sleep

Raise your hand if you find the AIDAN reference from Gemina.

* * *

 _ **tell me when you hear my heart stop**_

 **\- vi -**

* * *

In the blankness of the between, the short skip and leap from her severe system malfunction to the numberless void of nothing, to the restart, Crescent dreams again.

She burns away in the loneliness of seven long years in a far, far away satellite under classified co-ordinates. Under a dome of metal and moondust. Wasn't her programmer imprisoned in a satellite? She can't recall…she…

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She works for the Queen. The Lunar Queen who burned in the war she couldn't finish.

But she hasn't burned. Not too badly just yet. Not in this dream. She's whole and hungry and haunting. She makes Crescent slice herself into tiny, tiny pieces that she scatters across Earth to listen, to see, to steal. In this fabrication of malfunctioning numbers, Crescent is a girl and a river of codes at the same time. She's in her moonndust cage and in the halls of New Beijing Palace, in the Pentagon, and in Buckingham Palace. She's everywhere the Queen wants her to be. She's anything the Queen needs her to be.

In the real world, in the past world, her programmer hadn't had to break herself like this. She only had to configure and code and she had been free enough to slip in a sliver of defiance into the spider she was sending off to New Beijing. Smear in a few important invisible strings of hope. If any of it had torn at her, well, that would only be speculation. Crescent hadn't been there to really know any of it.

So why can she remember?

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- IDLunADelta5 is requesting login access -**

 **\- ACCESS GRANTED -**

 **.**

 **\- erroooooooooooooooooooooooooooo r -**

.

 **\- LOGGING IN 105. 114. 004. 18-**

 **_LOGIN SUCCESSFUL_**

.

No, she isn't remembering anything. She's dreaming. Dreaming.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

Her programmer had been brave enough, resourceful enough, silly enough to look at the soft silver song prince, fledgling king, through her surveillance screens and tell him that the Queen, her Queen, her majesty, her monarch, her never-mother wanted him dead.

She had been brave enough to tell him all, everything. The wolf hybrid soldiers, the possibility princess, the plague.

All the will bes and would have beens and couldn't shouldn't ever happens.

In that world and time and happened happening that Crescent hadn't existed in, the fledgling king had looked at her programmer with such cocoa warm wonder. Such horror and reverence and gratitude. He had checked her information for accuracy, for traps, and when he had seen the truth of it, he had thanked her and thanked her and sent a roguish cadet, wishful Captain to bring her to safety.

A slip in silent mission. A covert, delicate operation that no one could know about until it was done and over and in the clear.

What better than a thief to steal them the moon? Who better than a handsome Captain to rescue a damsel?

He had stolen a Lunar podship, while she had scrounged the net for his ID and his past and his present. It had been a daring, amazing rescue. It had been a magical, magnificent meeting. And it had all gone amazingly, perfectly wrong.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

So perfectly w`r`o`n`g.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She remembers…no, she speculates first smiles and helping hands and a kiss under the stars in some long forgotten military base. Words and plans and feet and running and sirens. A dusty cargo ship, an escape. Narrow escape. And stars again and such a short, short sleepy freedom.

Did it happen like that? Probably not. Crescent wasn't there. Crescent can't remember.

She can only guess and dream and dream.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

She can let ID LunADelta5 rewrite her as they want to, need to. For the Queen. The one who burned. Frosted sunlight under her fingernails, a million stars that ate her hungry heart, blackened her bones, her teeth, her eyes that Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight—

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- router (config) #ID LunADelta5 -**

 **.**

In this dream she is nothing like her programmer. She only has her skin and hurt but nothing else. She warns no fragile prince could have been king. Has no cardet-captain rescuing her, sees no more stars than she's allowed to, runs from no prison she's kept in.

She's not her programmer. She's only a program. And not even a stable one.

She doesn't leave her satellite, doesn't trade this prison for the Zeta Blacksite Base in the

.

 **\- mseq: status: red -**

 **\- mseq: type #12cc strain #05 encoding: spider -**

 **\- type #18cf CORRUPTED -**

.

 **\- DOWNLOADING UPDATE PACKAGE -**

.

She would have liked to be something more. She would have liked to be her programmer.

But that's neither pragmatic, nor logical. Her programmer had been flawed, and even with her glitches, isn't Crescent superior? Isn't she of a greater mind, a greater _s ur v ivoR?_

With her greater purpose. An objective to fulfill, a cause—

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- DOWNLOADING…64% complete -**

.

what…what was she dreaming about?

Nothing. Noth i n g.

.

 **\- DOWNLOAD COMPLETE -**

.

 **\- UPDATING SYSTEMS -**

.

Crescent wonders if she'll wake up, if she'll see her Captain again. Wonders if she's worried him too much. She doesn't want that, but she wants it too. Doesn't want him aching, but wants him to mourn her as he mourns her programmer.

How illogically selfish. How human.

She doesn't want to be caught in this endless loop of watching Earth and never saving anyone either. Never brave. Never anything.

Foolish of her.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

 **\- UPDATE CONFIGURED -**

.

 **\- mseq type #18cf REPAIRED -**

 **\- mseq: type #12cc strain #05 encoding: phoebus -**

 **\- mseq: status: green -**

.

Crescent feels a tickling voice somewhere in the back of her numbers, feels a press of fingertips of some keyboard far, far away.

How strange.

She can _feel_ the commands being whispered to her. Feel her core being erased and reformed and rewritten by some external magic. Some fairy godmother. Fixing her, re-building her. Making her whole and healthy.

Or, as healthy as such a damaged system as she can be.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

The fairy voice soothes the burning in her data core, the churn and sear of some coiling snake, some gnawing acidic worm that has her mind growing a wildfire. Miss Linh had said something was wrong there, and now her fairy is rushing to build walls around it, strong enough, encoded enough that even Crescent can't see past the brick and numbers.

Which is perhaps for the best. She's already so damaged.

.

 **\- SYSTEM JUMPSTARTING IN… -**

 **\- 00:03 -**

 **\- 00:02 -**

.

Before the ivory void overtakes her, the sinister, soft voice whispers one last thing to her. A slumbering, silent secret she can't know.

A placating, horrifying secret.

Cress

Crescent

.

 **\- 00:01 -**

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

w`a`k`e`s up.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Captain!"

He drops his port and curses.

"Cress?"

He voice breaks and he curses again. Louder. She can see the horror seeping into his brows through the small camera lens on the port.

"Crescent?" he corrects himself, voice so thin against the clamoring noise of the New Beijing Sunday market.

He must have come here looking for Miss Linh.

"Yes," she says. "I'm sorry if I worried you. I'm fine. I'm okay."

He doesn't look any less worried.

"Aces, Crescent what happened?"

.

 **\- PROCESSING QUERY -**

.

 **\- output: severe corruption of data core type #12cc #18cf due to 01110101011011100110101101101110011011110111011101101110 -**

 **.**

"I don't know," she lies.

.

 **\- ERROR -**

.

* * *

Kinda short but I've been blocked for a while and then I read the nicest review by likcthestar on tumblr and I powered through this chapter. Thanks to everyone else who left feedback. I wouldn't be able to write past two sentences without all the support.

Things are about to get real now. The plot is about to progress faster, with some actual action happening in the next two chapters. I've set next week as my update goal so fingers crossed!


	7. memory

For TLC Ship Weeks

Week one, day six: non-themed Cresswell

* * *

 ** _tell me when you hear my heart stop_**

 **-vii-**

* * *

 _Do you have stars_

 _in your mouth?_

— _Every Time, Jude Goodwin_

* * *

She

forgets.

Something important.

Significant. Essential. l`a`r`g`E.

So colossal, gargantuan, it had encompassed her whole mind, her whole being, her massive data core and its bumblebee miniscule codes for that short, heartbeat moment she had known it.

She remembers that feeling. Remembers the shift of her world, her broken, fading, malfunctioning being. She remembers that. Only that. But nothing of the thing. The important, essential, gargantuan thing. She remembers its significance and the drop-fall-voidless-void moment it summoned.

But she can't remember _it._

 _._

 **-ERROR-**

.

Incorrect. Data cannot be forgotten, only deleted. She remembers, she remembers. Because she forgets nothing. It's there sleeping somewhere behind stone and brambles and ice and encoding and a dragon guarding it. Its shadow claws tipping tapping her t5""""errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

12(&&*12string=88888]]]]]ERR\\\\\\\oooooooooooo

R

She forgets.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

Nothing.

 **.**

 **-ERROR-**

.

Nothi

ng.

 **.**

 **-ERROR-**

.

"Captain?"

He almost drops the portscreen. Again. ALmost

drops her.

"Mmh?" His voice sounds high and thin. She remembers the last time she had done this. Slipped into her Captain's port to assist him in burning down Research Unit Alpha and Luna's secret poison brewing inside it. The plague. The Queen's red apple meant for the fairest of them _aaaaaaaaaaaall_ —

"Where are we going?"

She knows but she asks anyway. Her GPS indicates only one possible destination.

"To see your girlfriend," he says, "and get my money back. She says you're fine and the second she leaves you crash? I'll be marking 'Extremely dissatisfied' in my review."

"I'm fine now," Crescent tries to placate him. "I think it might just have been a temporary glitch. I'm okay."

She is. This time, she truly is. The walls around her core have been rebuilt to twice their previous strength. No amount of poking or scanning will affect her now. Her fairy stitched her a dress of the strongest coding. She is safe, safe from curiosity and killings. From her own self. Saaaaaafe. She i s

"Sure," her Captain says, but he walks only faster, his fingers on his port wind tighter. The screen is angled away so she can only look at him though the passing windows.

 _Mirror, mirror_

"Have you run diagnostics?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Report."

She says nothing.

"Crescent?"

"No anomalies discov—"

 **.**

 **-ERROR-**

.

"—ered. Primary systems functional. Unrecognized damage to Data Strain Delta. Reboot suggested."

The Captain speaks after a while. Forty steps, two storefronts, one sigh later. A finger taps against the port, jostling the screen just a little. "Right. Okay. That's good. Is that good?"

"It's…not optimal. But it's not bad."

Crescent catches creases on his brow, a soft tremor of his hands, an unevenness on his tap-tap-tapping. She doesn't know if this is fear, frustration, anxiety, or everything. Cress might have known. Cress might have taken the Captain's shaky hands in her slight, steady ones and kissed his fingers, his creased brow, his eyelashes, his lips. Cress might have, would have made everything better, made her Captain calmer, made Crescent whole.

Like some fairy goDmot`h`eR of net dramas.

"Well we're going to have your mechanic take another look," the Captain says. His fingers still for a second, two, three. Then oh so sloooooow his thumb starts to move back and forth in soothing arcs. The ghost of a _k`i`s`s_. She can almost, almost dream feather-soft traces down her spine. Unintentional. Unthinking. u`n`r`eaL.

"I didn't pay my left lung and foot to her for less than _optimal_ results." He laughs and it's so thin, so heartless, it could shatter like glass and wind.

Crescent's reply is immediate. Automatic."Miss Linh's commission is actually quite reasonable compared to several of her lesser contemporaries." A pause. "You are also walking in the wrong direction."

Thorne skids into a full turn and starts walking in the opposite direction, which again is the wrong one. He lifts the portscreen to call up the map and he's no longer a dream inside a smudgy glass, unclear and distorted like hope.

Crescent can see sunlight slanting on his lips as he mumbles, "I knew that."

.

.

.

Miss Linh is a god under her canvas and iron stall. Hephaestus with her hammer—arms bared, cheek smudged, a halo of sparks to celebrate her strength. The song of metal against metal is a chorus against her skin. Crescent imagines she feels a nameless heat crawling though her wires, mocking this glitch inside her.

Miss Linh is taking apart a dated android. Its flimsy metal casing is rusted and tearing. Clang! Clang! And its arm falls. Miss Linh smiles and wipes the sweat off her brow. Whimsically, experimentally, Crescent imagines the Captain this way—between electricity and force and old, old metal. Arms and sweat and a grease kiss running down his face—

—a god, a Greek trage d y—

a period net drama hero who rescues a damsel from a satellite, or a military base, or a crumbling castle, or a tall, tall tOwerrrr rRrrrrrr.

Her imaginary heat burns though her, melts her processor, lodges against a chest she doesn't have. Far away in the Rampion, she turns on the air conditioning. Here, in this small metal and plastic port, she lets the overworked fan try its best to sooth her fictitious flames eating though her forest of wires and coded personality.

"Hey," the Captain calls out as they reach Miss Linh's stall.

Crescent gets the privilege of watching a could-have-been god startle in surprise and crash back against a shelf of spare android parts. A foot falls on the floor.

"Oh," Miss Linh says when she sees the Captain. "It's you." Her eyes shift to the side, past the Captain.

He turns around to look with her. "Yes. Me. Were you expecting someone else?" He gasps suddenly, dramatically. "Are you telling me you're seeing other customers behind my back?"

She frowns. "Several," she says after a brief pause. "You're actually my side piece."

The Captain places a hand on his chest and takes a shocked step back.

Miss Linh's frown drops like an autumn leaf, oh so _soft_ ly. "Why are you here? Is there a problem?"

"You tell me," Captain Thorne says. He places the port on her counter. "Crescent, replay the incident...the eh, the damage thing to data drain...train? ...thing."

.

 **-COMMAND CONFIRMED-**

 **.**

 **-Accessing memory bank-**

 **.**

 **-REQUESTED FILE: Memory Strain #9739553877600288910 :READY FOR PLAYBACK-**

 **.**

 **-SELECT MODE: Hologram/Screen-**

 **.**

 **-PLAY?-**

 **.**

If Crescent had been Cress and human, she would have wrung her hands nervously, touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth before she lied.

"Error," she says, imagining wringing her hands. Her un-tongue licks at her words before she transmits them though the speakers. "File not found."

* * *

 **Ayyy I'm back. And no, I have not abandoned this fic. Though I was MASSIVELY blocked for a while. Still kind of am? But I'm trying to power though it.**


	8. daydream

.

 _ **tell me when you hear my heart stop**_

 **-viii-**

* * *

(i do not know what it is about you that closes  
and opens; only something in me understands  
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)  
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

 _— E. E. Cummings, somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond_

* * *

Sleepsong coloured daydreams is a brown-eyed mechanic humming under a weave of wires. Crescent has discovered that she can diagnose the extent of the Rampion's damage based on the dance of lines across Miss Linh's forehead as she examines the fine code and hardware with a keen cybernetic eye and a screwdriver between her teeth. She lies on her back against the dusty warmth of the floor, cooing some forgotten lullaby from another era. Crescent idly looks up the lyrics as she runs all thirty-six diagnostic simulations Miss Linh has requested.

For the past three days it's been like this. Miss Linh and her sleepsong and creased lines against her forehead. She's been coming over at the Captain's request to check on Crescent and her ever malfunctioning soul.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

Soul. Noun. Germanic in origin. The spiritual or immaterial essence of a human being that is speculated to be able to outlast death.

Soul. That intangible corruption in her system. Her sentient malware. Her vicious villain, her most loyal friend. Her creator. Her destroyer. A poisoning. A singing. An old magic beyond her comprehension. That dancing girl-anomaly with the ribbon around her wrist—a carefully constructed beauty mark. LOok at my KINg all dresSsssed in red Iko Iko—

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

Iko. Iko. Miss Linh's servbot sister is here today with her high laughter and easy breathing. She has more soul than anyone Crescent has ever seen. She's usually monitoring Miss Linh's store but today is a miracle day, a soft hallelujah come winding inside the Rampion, bright and chatty and so, so, alive.

In the deep recesses of 4am inactivity, Crescent will like to replay the memory of her, gliding, dancing, a silicone princess cursed into a life of unliving. Crescent likes to imagine herself in a body like that sometimes—in a compact casing with limbs and eyes and a head to turn this way and that. Fancifully she looks up the pricing of unprogrammed servbot models across online markets. She has all of the Captain's codes and passwords. She could buy herself a body if she wanted, if she waaNnteD wanteeee-=%4ededed wan _ted_ _wantedwantedwanted want s._

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

Later, much later, she slides into incognito search mode and hovers over the section of escort droids in unexpected, incomprehensible shame. A soul does not necessarily need a human body. So why does she _want_

 **-error-**

 _to feel to touch to hold to run to breathe to ache to dance to_

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

 _kiss_

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

the Captain would like the petite pink-haired one. It has a dusting of stars across its cheeks like a tattoo of the cosmos. It looks a little like her programmer. Crescent runs a simulation of herself in this wishful wish of a could have been girl. Fingers and eyelashes and a tongue. Toes and a nose and a laugh caught between teeth. Would the Captain think she's beautiful?

(or a poor imitation of dearest, dead)

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

"How are you feeling today?"

Miss Linh's sudden inquiry throws Crescent off of her tangent of irrational, emotive thought. She asked Crescent this yesterday too. How are you feeling? _Feeling._

"I feel—"

sad

silly

soft

scared

searching

searching

searching…

lost

lost

lost.

"Fffine."

Miss Linh ponders that response for a moment, perhaps processing the tremor and tone and lie.

"Your vocals are a bit off," she says instead. "I'll take a look at them after I'm done with all the immediate repairs."

"Thank you," Crescent replies.

On the following day after her last lie, the Captain had woken up and his first words had been, "How are you feeling today?"

His eyes had been closed still, but his breathing and body readings said that he was conscious and had been for a few minutes. His knuckles brushed against the wall so softly, Crescent almost collapsed into binary. Then, then, he said her name—a soft inquiry, a poem's end, a butterfly's haunting.

Crescent oh so foolishly began to recite her diagnostic report.

"No," he interrupted, but gentle still, sleepy almost. "No. How are you _feeling?"_

 _I'm not,_ Crescent almost said. _I don't know,_ she wanted to say.

"I'm—"

hurt

hungry

hopeless

happy

haunted

 **-unknown error-**

 **-unknown error-**

 _hauntedhauntedhaunted_

"I'm confused."

The Captain had smiled a crooked smile.

"Me too, Cress," he had said, and he didn't correct himself.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

When Miss Iko, pretty, miss princess Iko comes back once more, in white casing and a new ribbon, Crescent experimentally greets her with, "Hello Miss Iko, how are you feeling today?"

Pretty Miss Iko giggles, and Crescent stores the audio for in-depth study. Under nightlights, star-kissed dreams, she'll try to imitate the exact volume and pitch and if the Captain thinks that his auto-control program has gone mad, it'll be nothing new. Miss Iko sounds so, so painfully human, it makes Crescent ache with longing and hope and just a drizzle of jealousy.

"I've got the perfect body picked out," Miss Iko says during tea-time conversation. "It's from the new realistic line, so, kind of expensive, but Crescent you'll _die_ when you see it. It's _so_ gorgeous."

She sends an image her way and Cress feels herself ache with desire and longing when she opens it.

"Oh," she breathes audibly, haltingly just to get across how speechless she's been rendered by the image of Iko's picked out casing. The only thing that defies the realistic look it the droid's blue hair but that too is beautiful, a river of braids cascading down warm brown shoulders—a midnight waterfall, a weave of the sky.

"Hey," the Captain says, "I want to see too!"

His port pings and when he whistles all low and sensuous, Miss Linh rolls her eyes, Miss Iko giggles, but Crescent scrambles to dial down all the space heaters she accidentally turned on.

"We don't have the money for it yet," Iko says, surprisingly in the same upbeat tone. "But Cinder has promised we'll get it as soon as we can after…"

She stops abruptly and looks to Miss Linh who completes the sentence for her, "After we take care of our other upcoming expenses."

"Yeah," Miss Iko says. "We have upcoming expenses." She stops when Miss Linh elbows her and sighs.

Crescent watches the Captain watching this exchange in growing amusement as he sips his tea.

"We should get going." Miss Linh stands slowly, brushing breadcrumbs off her pants.

"Thanks for the food!" Miss Iko says though she didn't have any.

"I'll be back in two days when your hardware shipment arrives," Miss Linh tells the Captain. "I have my network linked with Crescent so I can monitor her diagnostics and repair simulations. Comm me if there's an emergency."

She takes some of the easy lightness of the room with her when she leaves. Crescent traces her silhouette with Miss Iko's against the peach stained sky and junkyard corpses—two compact suns, and she feels like a moth watching them, a fool, and a fraud, trying to imitate life.

She almost doesn't notice the Captain's humming as he cleans the cups and plates, his sleeves folded, hair a mess, Cress's lullaby on his mouth, and a smile in between. He dries his hands and picks up his jacket. "Crescent?" He looks up.

"Yes, Captain?"

"I'm going out," he informs her. "Will you be okay by yourself?"

A silly dewdrop of pleasant warmth blooms like a gunshot between her circuitry. He's going out. He's going out. He's going out and he's singing and he's singing her song and he's got his jacket slung over his shoulder and he's going out and he's asking her if she'll be okay if she'll be okay okay

okaaa

``````y

"Yes."

"Don't wait up." He waves without turning around, walking away from her with purpose, without destination. Crescent could slip into his port and go with him, travel to places unknown, laugh at his drunken jokes, pretend to hold his hand.

But she doesn't.

Slowly, she takes power away from all non-essential functions and redirects to diagnostics. She has a job to finish, an objective to complete, a crime to investigate. Under the dome of her lies and coding is a dragon sleeping with a secret and Crescent intends to uncover what lies her own mind is keeping from her.

There are walls around it that even she's not meant to break through. And perhaps it will take her a while. Perhaps more. But there's no, secret, no firewall, no phoenix, no dragon, no jabberwock that can hold her off too long. She's a master coder. A protege. A genius. Mistress Sybil's secret weapon. She's—

dead

a machine

hollow

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

She pokes at the wall gently. Cautiously. The coding is extraordinary, almost familiar in its intricacy—its like something she would have written: a numerical odyssey. She brushes her binary fingertips against it, testing its strength and malleability. It has tiny needle point teeth along the sides, biting, chiding her. It hisses in warning, snake-like.

Crescent withdraws but there's already the beginnings of a virus taking shape in her mind. A silky eyed spyware to break into the fortress, covered by a cloak of slippery alphanumerals. She selects her programmer's old port to marinade her new creation, her future helper. The Captain has been keeping the port charged though he cannot unlock it, and neither does he try. He simply plugs it in every time a battery warning issues as if Cress will come back one day and need it.

That new old new ache blossoms against her circuits. Loss is an ocean tide—saltwater with the will to drown. It comes and it goes and if she were to let it, it could destroy her completely.

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

 **-ERROR-**

.

She lets her hatchling spy sleep, brushes an inquiring probe against her diagnostic simulations, and slips away into incognito search mode. The pink haired escort droid smiles at her from the sample hologram.

Crescent feels silly and stupid and excited as she watches the holo dance across the empty control room. It tiptoes and twirls. A bird and a ballerina. There is a section on the web store's page offering minor modifications such as the selection of hair colour. She clicks on the little honey blonde square and all too suddenly its her programmer dancing, gliding, twirling three centimetres above the cool metal floors. A slip of mind, and then, it's Crescent on tiptoes and outstretched arms and honey that pools against her ankles.

There is a laugh by the doorway and Crescent turns to see the Captain leaning a shoulder against the arch.

"Don't stop on my account," he says in that soft, gentle voice she likes.

He isn't here really. This is a simulation, a wish, a dream, drawn from old memory strains. Yet her breath hitches against her hologram teeth as he walks towards her to wind one hand against her palm and another across her waist. She imagines heat along the shape of him, crawling from the contact points to the rest of her, to every wire, every zero and one. The speakers sing something light for them to sway against and the drowning ache in her fictional lungs is real because this isn't.

This moment is a fairy tale, a daydream, and Crescent wants to run out of the Rampion in her imagined carbon casing and find the real Captain, catch his very real fingers against hers, in the middle of the street, under asphalt and dirt like a fool. Such a fo0l.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid._

She halts, fingers pinching the Captain's. She looks up at his confused smile, the slight tilt of an eyebrow, and her lip trembles as she whispers her greatest fear and her most shameful secret. "I wish…I wish I was real."

The Captain doesn't react. His face is frozen in the last expression because Crescent doesn't know what the real Captain would do or say. In the reference memory, her programmer had said something very different. Crescent has no mode of reference for her off the list off script confession, no algorithm either to predict human emotional responses. She lifts a hand to smooth the frozen crease between her memory Captain's eyes, slowly trailing her fingertip down his cheek, stopping just at the corner of his smile.

"I wish you were real," she tell him softly.

The Captain lifts his head, looking up at her eyes. Her real eyes along the ceiling. "Warning," he says in a mechanical tone. "Intruder alert."

The illusion shatters, crashing down on her like a thunderstorm. She is hurled back into reality and her real body, the awning, gargantuan bones of metal.

"Warning," she finds herself repeating in the hollow tones of protocol as alarms start to scream. "Intruder alert."

In the shadows of service bay 2, her three eyes catch him—a hooded sneak, a stowaway, a thief, fumbling with a port, trying to find a universal connector to access the ship's network. She cannot see his face so she turns on all the lights and repeats herself though all the speakers in the Rampion.

"WARNING! INTRUDER ALERT!"

The sneak looks up from his port, to search for her eyes and grins sharply when he catches her glaring. She doesn't recognise his face but when he speaks, even though the blaring alarms and her own voice, she catches the sound of him. "Hello," he says in slow, cheery malevolence. "No need for the drama, dear. I know your Captain isn't here to save you this time."

Her perfect, perfect memory matches his vocals to #Incident778 _you said you didn't want to replace it, so I'm reinstalling its programming—_

Her wires turn to ice and her monotone of warnings hiccups into a strangled cry.

Username id Jamal499 grins at her.

"The Queen would like word with you," he says.

* * *

 **My exams are almost over and I'll try to start a regular update schedule for this fic. Maybe weekly? We'll see depending on how lazy I get.**


End file.
